We don’t need separate road laws for every county

WE THOUGHT IT was kind of cool when we learned that Richland Rep. Todd Rutherford had decided to wage a personal war against rising gasoline prices by commuting to and from work and the State House in a souped-up golf cart. A bit nerdy, perhaps, but in a cool sort of way.

And though we didn’t give them a whole lot of thought, we didn’t immediately see any problems with a couple of bills he introduced earlier in the year to loosen the restrictions on golf cart use. After all, we really need to start doing something to reduce our nation’s self-destructive appetite for foreign oil.

But Mr. Rutherford’s colleagues apparently did have problems with his ideas, or at least they didn’t see them as enough of a priority to act on. So they ignored his bill to allow people to cruise around the neighborhood after dark if their golf carts are fully equipped with headlights and taillights, and they essentially killed his bill to let event sponsors use golf carts within a half-mile radius of the events they’re sponsoring. (Current law only allows them on public roads within two miles of the driver’s home or office, and then only during daylight hours.)

Unfortunately, Mr. Rutherford responded by doing something that is becoming far too common inside the State House: He rolled those two ideas together with an even broader expansion — to let drivers use their golf carts on public roads within five miles of home or work — and submitted them as a bill that applies only to Richland County roads. And since legislators from outside the county in question almost never interfere with these so-called local bills, all he had to do was convince his fellow Richland County legislators to pass it. They did insist on scaling back the bill, so that it only includes the nighttime driving and event sponsors provisions, but with those changes they signed off on it. So earlier this month, a bill was sent to Gov. Mark Sanford that would create a whole different set of rules for driving on the state roads inside of Richland County than we have in any other county in the state.

What’s next? Will Lexington County’s legislators pass a bill saying you can drive your lawnmower on the sections of the interstate that run through their county? Maybe legislators from Sumter County could pass that bill that some motorcyclists wanted that lets them drive through red lights — only in Sumter County, of course. And for Kershaw County, why not just outlaw speed limits altogether?

Let’s set aside the constitutional problems with such single-county traffic laws and consider merely the logistical problems: Must our Highway Patrol troopers now learn what individualized highway laws apply in each county to which they might be assigned?

We certainly hope that Gov. Mark Sanford will veto this bill, continuing his valiant if usually vain effort to hold lawmakers to the constitution, which prohibits most single-county laws. We realize that the Legislature — or rather, the Richland County legislators — will almost certainly override that veto come January. But at least that will delay the implementation of this local law. And perhaps someday, our legislators will begin to respect the state constitution that they swear to obey.